


Penitence

by charade



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-01 02:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13285104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charade/pseuds/charade
Summary: Riku spends as much time as he can in the room where Sora sleeps and as little as he can sleeping himself.





	Penitence

All this white hurts his eyes, the blinding sterile white of this room. It seeps into him even through the black cloth of his blindfold. This place radiates light, but it’s far from a comforting kind. That sort of light, Riku knows, can only exist in his memories, now. No, this light is cruel and sharp, and there is no hiding from it in this place. But he has to be here, Riku tells himself, pressing on his eyes through the cloth, because this is where Sora is, resting innocent and content. And sometimes Riku is jealous, despite himself, despite the fact that he knows that it feeds the darkness he is working so damn hard to keep at bay. Sora's just floating there, sleeping, and Riku is so fucking tired. Today, he's alone with Sora in that pod of his, watching the corners of the other boy's mouth twitch occasionally in dreams. It isn't that dorky ear-to-ear grin that's seared into Riku's memories - it’s smaller, simpler, and it gnaws at something behind his ribs. "I'm so tired" he breathes out, a confession of sin. Any words he says in the white-white walls of Sora's sanctuary feel like an act of contrition.

He's tired of everything, of himself, the darkness, and the constant fight to keep the two separate. Riku hardly sleeps anymore, as little as he can manage. Every time he gets close to unconsciousness, he wills himself awake with memories of waking up covered in sweat, coursing with alien energy. He remembers the stink of it, the feeling of dark tendrils puppeting him from inside his skin. And he tells himself he'll never fall asleep again.

Namine says she can help. She told him again today, hesitant, gripping her sketch pad. She can make some of it go away, just a bit. "It won't take long," she said, "not as long as-" but Riku held up a gloved hand and shook his head. As tempting as it is, body leaden from fatigue, thoughts whirling miles per minute, he never will. He looks up at Sora through the strip of cloth. "It's your turn to sleep, not mine," he says (or thinks - in this place, sometimes he's not sure).

He presses his forehead against the cool glass. DiZ is worried, even says he's concerned, but Riku knows it isn't for him. The man's presence makes him almost nauseated. He smells like something Riku can't place and that makes him nervous. DiZ's concerns are for something bigger than Riku, something he keeps inside of his wrapped, masked head. Something Riku can smell rotting him from the inside out. And Riku has had enough of rot. He ignores DiZ and spends hours here anyway. It's the least he can do, after all. Sora is here because of him. Everything he caused, all the pain and loss, Sora floating there is a silent white monument to it all.

He lets his head roll across the glass in a slow shake. He's lying to himself again. Guilt is such a noble reason to come here, self flagellation, bleeding his sins bare in front of this alter to his crimes. He could scream them out until he had no voice and it wouldn't make a dent in the weight of it. No wonder he's so tired. But he's no pilgrim. This is far more selfish than that. Riku feels a laugh die half way to his throat. It always is with him. Selfish. He wonders if there is a single selfish thought in Sora's heart, if there ever was. He's asked Namine things like this, but she never answers, just smiles and looks back down at her sketchpad.

The dead laugh burns down Riku's gut and he realizes his legs are aching. He'd spent so long trying to pull away from the sensations in his own skin that he still sometimes doesn't recognize discomfort until something calls attention to his body. For a second, he has to force himself to breathe, to stand, to not collapse right there and let Sora's closed eyes bare witness to whatever monster he'll become.

But that's just it, isn't it. Sora wouldn't see, not really. Can't see him now, leaning against the glass, shaking, fists closed around nothing at all for stability. Monument that he is, while Sora drifts in dreams, all the judgment that Riku feels in this sickeningly white room is projecting from his own heart. And that, Riku has borne for so long already. If Sora were to open his eyes, to really see —

It terrifies him. Sometimes, when he drifts off for moments, or lets his mind wander, he imagines Sora’s eye’s flickering open from behind the glass, and it’s like the claws of shadow heartless digging at his chest. It’s strange, that of all the things he’s seen and all the monsters he’s fought that Sora should frighten him. Of all the monstrous things he’s done and all the monster he’s become, it’s the eyes of his best friend he’s most afraid of. His eyes and his heart.

We are afraid of what we do not understand, DiZ had said once. In response to what, Riku can’t remember, not now, with his thoughts scattered as they are from exhaustion. There’s another memory he doesn’t want to think about, from a place Riku wishes he could forget, of another voice, another man concealed in another robe. “One who knows nothing can understand nothing.”

He’s really learned nothing at all, he thinks. Only his own weakness. There’s a lesson in that, maybe, one he might even be able to learn one day, but none of them have the time that would take. None of them can risk any more of his mistakes. It’s not the lesson he needs, anyway, he thinks.

One day Sora will wake up. That much he’s vowed, even if it destroys him. He unclenches his hands and watches absently as his gloved fingers shake, muscles too spent to stay them. He wants it to destroy him, sometimes. He’s a coward for thinking it, he knows. But he’s seen Sora, keyblade pointed at him, ready to drown him in light. (The keyblade Riku lost in his arrogance, in his pride, in his _weakness_.) Even if it had been an illusion in the end, it had been spun from his own memories. From his own heart.

One day Sora will wake up and he will see Riku for what he really is, and that is why Riku comes here now to pour out his self loathing and empty confessions. Because, asleep, Sora cannot hate him. Asleep, Sora cannot show him the truth of what he’s done.

But asleep, Sora leaves him alone with the silence to battle against the darkness always scraping at his guts. And he’s so tired. But sleep, even that momentary oblivion, just isn’t a chance he can take. Not even with Kairi safe on the shores of a home he’ll never see again. Not even with Sora behind this glass cage. There is a monster inside of him, lingering within his heart. The foul, cloying taste of darkness, of rot and decay, lives permanently at the back of his throat. It’s in everything he eats. It’s in every breath. No, he cannot forget it. And it’s just waiting for a chance to strangle him from the inside.

He has to keep fighting. At least for now, he has to.

He rests his shaky hands against the cool glass, raising them level to where Sora’s lie at his sides. It’s a delusion of the contact he could never bring himself to make. If anyone understands, though, it would be Sora. The need to keep fighting, whatever the cost. He allows himself a moment to close his eyes behind his blindfold. It’s enough to make his eye’s sting and start to water. He’s thankful for the cloth, even if he’s alone here.

Everything after his first fight with Sora in Hollow Bastion is a haze. His memory runs like a movie reel that someone filmed over twice, all the while lanced through with a feeling of panic and ecstasy as if transferred through the screen. Not his own, but still coursing through him. But he can remember Sora’s face so clearly when he turned that horrible thing on himself. The physical pain down every nerve as he tried to rip through that miasma, that stench. Being too late. Almost being too late again. That’s why he can’t give up.

He almost lost them once. Almost killed them. There’s a bolt of pain through his head at the thought, and he hears himself whimper as if the sound were coming from the other side of the room. He’s outside of himself again for one terrifying moment and he can hear _his_ voice, coming from nowhere and everywhere like it always does, from inside his own heart. “Pathetic.”

He comes back to himself and the thrumming of his pulse in his ears, his head pounding at a counterpoint rhythm. It’s easier to fall to his knees, to ground himself with more of him touching something solid.

It’d be so easy to give up. To surrender. Not just to sleep, but to all of it. He’s pushing back constantly against these floodgates. It’d be so much easier to just run away.

But he knows that Sora is still sleeping behind his blindfold. And beyond that, there are more monsters to kill. (More than monsters, he thinks, but he’s too tired to dwell on that now.) He knows the danger that lurks in the shadows of every world because it courses through his veins. Because he fights every second to keep it from taking over. Because he’s given in before and let himself become the biggest danger there is. So he can’t. He has to stay. Has to fight.

The blindfold blocks out less than he’d like sometimes. Leaning his head back, he can see Sora floating there, make out the curve of his mouth. See that his eyes are still closed. Always blessedly closed.

Dammit, Sora. What was he thinking, going to sleep like that. In the middle of a war.

Maybe even you can be selfish, Riku thinks, vainly, staring through the thin strip of fabric. Did he think the worlds would put down their arms because their hero was taking a nap? Did he think the sort of people who took over lives, who took over worlds, who took over bodies, would wait for him? Would postpone their plans just because he wanted his memories back? Idiot. Stupid, naive idiot.

He’s out of breath, but he doesn’t know if he said all that out loud - screamed it to the empty white walls - or if it’s just the pressure in his chest for the shame of even thinking it. He knows that isn’t fair. It wasn’t a choice, really. It wasn’t supposed to take this long.

Riku forgets, sometimes, how young they really are. Fourteen years old and saving the worlds. Sora really is incredible. And what does that make him? Fifteen and destroying them. He reaches out his hand and closes it around nothing. To think, this is what the keyblade looks to in its hour of need. Children who’d never been more than an hour’s boat ride off their island. A bunch of stupid, curious children.

His arm feels too heavy to hold, muscles already burning at the strain of holding onto air. The worlds, he thinks, would have been better off without him. What good has he ever done them?

“You’re wrong, Riku,” he thinks, almost hears - it’s so clearly in Sora’s voice - and that sends a wave of ice rolling over his body. He almost tears off the blindfold just to check, but no, it’s all in his head. He’s starting to hear things. He’s been awake for so long, he’s going to fall apart in one way or another. A bitter laugh bubbles up from his chest, and he doesn’t have the will or energy left to stop it. It leaves him shaking there, fallen on his hands and knees, fully bowed before this alter, before Sora, in supplication and fatigue.

What right does he have to even be here? He remembers that one world dotted with statues of heroes and gods, people leaving small offerings at their feet. What does he have to offer? At some point, Sora must have realized there was more at stake, that this was more than reuniting with his friends. At some point, he must have realized what fate had placed on his shoulders.

There’s another bitter memory, of Sora turning away, and a witch whispering in Riku’s ear. Of cold fingers on his shoulder. It’s all too heavy. Too much. His arms threaten to give way under him, and he doesn’t have the will left to fight them. It’s easier to let himself fall.

Sora, whose heart is stronger than rulers of entire worlds. It’s a heart Riku could never understand. He was a fool to think he could even compare. What does Riku, the weakling, the darkling, the boy defined only by his mistakes, have to offer to someone like that?

Not even a proper apology. He’s failed again, he realizes, as his eyes start to flutter closed. It’s strange, he thinks, that even walls this white can turn so black. He doesn’t consider what it means. He doesn’t have the energy.

“I’m sorry,” he thinks.

If he wakes up, wakes up as himself, he’ll go on fighting, go on holding it back and pushing it down. He’ll do this all over again. He’ll kill who he needs to kill. But right now, as he curls in on himself there at the foot of his own personal shrine, he can feel himself surrender. If only to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> This thing has existed in some shape or form for at least a literal decade, so I apologize if its a little teen angsty. But that's fitting, because Riku is an angsty teen. Not that he doesn't have a reason to be.
> 
> I wrote this without giving any specific labels to what he's going through, in part because at the time I wrote the first draft for this, I didn't have the words for a lot of those things myself, just the experience of them. I hope the warning in the tags is enough, but if you think more should be warned for or tagged, let me know, and I apologize if the lack of specifics left anyone seeing content they didn't want to. I'm an old hand at fandom, but a new hand at AO3 tagging.


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